And why does everybody keep saying you need to find it? My thoughts...
Or checkout the ‘Hollywood Heist’ backlot.
Illustration by Emily McCafferty
A non-supercilious cat.
During Covid I started carrying my backpack around the house. It was to have a selection of books for wherever and whenever I eventually sat down. I had migrated my office library to the basement so creating a slush pile became more like visiting the stacks.
With life’s daily complications I also ended up occasionally toting around the previous night’s underwear in said rucksack.
See, I get dressed in the living room. Instead of creaking open drawers and hopping around the bedside at dawn I grab my neatly prepared clothes and creep out to start my day. Upon changing in front of the large picture window facing the street, the previous nights’ drawers are stowed in a front pocket for direct deposit into the washing machine.
By the time I complete my downstairs commute, hands full of coffee I forget or procrastinate circling back to drop off the payload. The difference between being a quirky author or just plain disturbed is selling some books. That’s why I write.
My theory is that finding ‘your voice’ is bringing to life the things you happen to notice. That's the problem with clichés. They don’t represent the way you individually see the world.
For instance, Robert Galbraith notices…
“Strike and the silver tabby eyed each other; in the cat’s case, superciliously, before it sat down on the mat and began to groom itself with an air of dismissing Strike from its thoughts.”
That’s from Lethal White (yes, I’ve started #4 of 5). I don’t know what supercilious means but I can see why the cat would do that, and it sounds like something Robert (we’re on a first name basis) would point out.
So instead of looking for supercilious things I’m trying to take better stock of what I notice. For instance, with little ones in the house your opportunities to lick the brownie spoon are frequently given away to the messy eaters. But if you’re present you soon realize that there is even more abundance in licking the baby.
How that finds its way into the writing, I have no idea.
Happy Friday, stay cool.
Charlie
Have some thoughts? Feel free to drop a comment or hit me up: charlie@charleskunken.com
Other Posts In The Hollywood Heist Series
Please judge.